Issue 13: Happy New Year

Frankie Dale | She/Her

EAT PUSSY, NOT YOUR WORDS

Talking to a guy wearing ripped acid wash jeans, boat shoes, and a leather bracelet was one of the many downfalls of my post COVID celebrations. 

It certainly didn’t help when he said: “Being a preppy feminist isn’t hot… you have to look at it from all sides, all lives do matter and that’s on period dawg”. He continued to ramble something along the lines of “White privilege doesn't exist, I believe in the term ‘black disadvantage’”. Whatever the fuck that means. Gross.

I wondered why no one had the capacity to speak up or even make eye contact with this bigot. Maybe it’s the desire to be validated by the male gaze—I am so guilty of this. As his girlfriend stood there slightly defeated and clearly embarrassed, I felt for her. The need to feel validated by a guy is so common. 

I have a fear about speaking up in general, even if it’s something simple like telling my dad he took the wrong turn due to my mistake on Google maps. Or the other week when a guy bit my vagina and I didn’t say anything. I found him about as threatening as a small animal but I still couldn’t muster up the strength to tell him I was in pain—WTF is that about? 

Before I considered jamming my vape into my eyeball, I thought to myself… I need to go home and rub one out to Julia Gillard’s misogyny speech. 

As I looked down at my once white now red bed sheets I realised something wasn’t quite right…  my Instagram boo turned certified gynaecologist diagnosed my lacerated vulva with something I am quite familiar with—my period. No, I thought to myself, this was not my period. 

It was the product of his unnecessary use of teeth and the hangnail I spied earlier. I justified to myself that I couldn’t be ‘bothered’ correcting him. Making him accountable felt pointless. But I realise that my own willingness to accept his diagnosis was reflective of my own unwillingness to speak up.

For those of you who don’t know me, it’s a widely known fact that I am extremely self-destructive, bordering on marginally toxic. 

I’ll give you an example. Last week I saw an ex-lover on Cuba Street and they looked genuinely terrified of me.
It's fair, the top of my nipple was hanging out of my crop top and my camel toe was strikingly visible. It didn't help that I smelt of puke. Nonetheless, I approached him and made a weird joke about how he looks way less creepy with his new haircut. Sorry, but you low key did look like Charles Manson. 

Honestly, I am pretty fucking over being in a flippant state of absolutely emo or completely elated. Being down because you’ve been doing too many drugs or drinking excessive amounts of alcohol may be due to the depressing world we currently live in. It is honestly so exhausting and I refuse to keep going down the same track as a really ugly, poor version of Paris Hilton. 

So if I can launch myself on the general public of Wellington, why can’t I call out that dude at the party. Why can’t you?

Take it from a girl who’s clit might never recover, we have to normalize speaking up. It doesn’t have to be in an aggressive manner, but if that’s how you roll, power to ya. Please, for the love of god, ASSERT yourself. Speak up to that Young Nat kid at your next flat party. Speak up for your own sexual pleasure. Anything else is complacency.